Coffees of Latin America and the Caribbean

Marnely Rodriguez-Murray is the author of the food blog Cooking with Books. A graduate of The Culinary Institute of America, she has worked as an overnight bread baker in Colorado and a chocolate maker in Virginia. She currently resides ...

Discover new to you coffee roasters!

With so many new coffee roasters in the market and more starting up each day, we take a look at some Latin American and Caribbean-sourced coffee beans that are waking us up each morning in the best of ways.

Coffee, to most of us, is a daily ritual that we've personalized, tweaked and made into exactly what we want the moment to be like. Some of us grab a cup at the local coffee shop on our way to work, drinking out of a disposable cup while in the car/bus/train. Others make the time to brew at home — whether they're sipping their cup during the chaos that is the morning or they've fine-tuned their ritual so well, they've actually found 5 minutes to enjoy their cup without disturbance.

Whatever way you enjoy your brewed cup, here you'll find some new companies and roasters, as well as beans sourced from small farmers south of the equator, that will hopefully make your cup even more enjoyable. Be sure to purchase whole roasted beans and invest in a coffee grinder. Whether a blade coffee grinder or a burr grinder, the fresher your beans are ground, the better tasting your coffee will be.

1

Chilmark Coffee Company, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts

Coffee and Origin: Antigua Los Volcanes, Guatemala

Roast: medium

Aroma: sweet, citrus

Price: $15/12 ounces

These coffee beans are grown in mineral dense soil with nutrients and sediments that nurture the plants and create gorgeous characteristics in the final cup. Laced with flavors of citrus such as orange as well as nutty almond and smooth milk chocolate, this is a fantastic bean if you're interested in delicate sweetness in your cup.

2

The West Bean, San Diego, California

Coffee and Origin: San Antonio Lorenzo Mosquera, Colombia

Roast: light

Aroma: honey

Price: $17/8 ounces

It seems coffees on the sweeter side are up and coming, meaning we don't even need to be adding sugar to our daily brew. This coffee, originally from Colombia, is microbatched and roasted in San Diego; the aroma of honey, sweet peaches, and crisp apple/pear will catch your senses immediately. This slightly sweet coffee lends itself well to baking and pastry applications.

3

Paradise Coffee Roasters, Minnesota

Coffee and Origin: Single Origin Espresso Brazil Pocos De Caldas

Roast: medium

Aroma: nutty, caramel

Price: $13/12 ounces

Harvested by three local farms in Brazil, this bean was chosen as the main bean in this year's blends by Paradise Roasters, and the fact that they're also selling it as a single origin espresso speaks to its greatness. Bright in the cup, with a thicker body than usual, it'll put a pep in your step by the second sip.

Trend alert

What other trends should you look out for in 2013? Single-origin espresso, Kenyan coffee beans and the ever so trendy but kind of weird animal dung coffee!